The Return to Haven
by Captain Evermind
Summary: After Holly's return from Hybras, she finds it a little difficult to adjust to having missed three years worth of her life, and to the thought that maybe her friends have moved on without her... Mostly an excuse for H/T goodness.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Ok, I can't believe how insane I am to be starting a whole new chaptered fic when I have so many others simply crying out for updates... Sigh. I must just be a completion-phobic. I've had this idea for a fic for a little while, but was prompted to finally write it by the lack of decent explaination in TP. And also by the lack of Trouble Kelp...

Return to Haven.

Holly Short stumbled thankfully through the doors of Police Plaza and out into the cool night air of a slumbering Haven. She had been sprayed, injected and cross-examined to within an inch of her life she was bone-tired, filthy, bloodied, and she stank worse than a pubescent troll. Right now, she didn't care what happened to her provided she got a bubble bath and a pile of pillows. And not necessarily in that order. After all, even if her body didn't realise it, here, she hadn't washed, eaten or slept for three years.

Wincing with the effort of dragging her boots along the pavement, Holly cursed whichever deity had prompted her to walk to work that morning. Or rather, on a Tuesday morning three years, five months and twenty seven days ago. Holly groaned. Her head hurt. She cursed Artemis Fowl and his crazy schemes. Even though, technically, this one hadn't been quite his fault. It still made her feel better.

She stumbled to a halt beside an ostentatious statue of Frond, with half an idea in her head to buy as many deep fried pit slugs from the van opposite as she could carry. But it was 0400 hours, Haven time. The van's grilles were decidedly closed, its stroppy pixie owner doubtless snoring along with the rest of Haven. For a moment, Holly contemplated just breaking into the van and liberating the contents of its fridge, but she didn't have the energy. Typical of the LEP to arrive just after the nick of time and probe her for every detail of her unexpected absence without offering her so much as a cup of sim coffee. If Foaly had been there, he would have remembered, but Foaly was still topside, supervising Fowl's 'insertion', as he insisted on calling it, back into the family home.

This was getting ridiculous. Holly was an experienced enough officer to know when an elfin body was – to use the technical term – dead on its feet. The retrieval jocks, of course, had another name for it, but it was a term not generally used in polite company.

_Retrieval jocks... Trouble_. Subconsciously, Holly felt her feet turning in the direction of Trouble's flat. Trubs and his mates would let her crash on their couch for a night, she was sure, and it was a damn sight closer than the other side of Haven.

Why in the name of Frond's bollocks did Trouble Kelp have to live at the top of a huge flight of stairs? Holly gritted her teeth and began to drag herself upwards, comforting herself with the thought of the insulting names she would call him when she reached the top.

At long last, she stood panting on the front doorstep. A stolen traffic cone surmounted the banister rail, and leaning against the porch wall was a text bar (also stolen) of the type used by LEP officers to control traffic. The text on this particular bar was frozen in a delicately crude invitation. Chix Verbil's work, no doubt. It didn't seem to matter if a male was LEP or not – they were the same the world under.

Holly had never been a subtle elf. Right now, tact and delicacy were not exactly on her top ten traits list either. She pounded her fist against the door as though picturing it to have Artemis Fowl's face.

Somewhat to her surprise, there was an almost immediate diatribe of cursing, and the door was wrenched open

"Who the...?" queried the sprite who stood behind it, taking in her dishevelled appearance.

"I'm looking for Trouble." Holly explained, wincing inside her head at how ridiculous that sentence sounded. From the room behind the sprite came a demented cackling voice that Holly recognised only too well.

"Seventeen!" Chix Verbil choked, through his laughter "Seventeen, the bastard!"

"Er, what?" Holly asked, slightly bemused.

"My flatmates and I have a little bet on," grinned the sprite at the door. "About the number of times in a month that a different girl shows up here 'looking for Trouble'."

"Save your bet, flyboy," Holly said, shoving aside the sprite and stepping through the front door uninvited. "I'm not most girls."

Chix Verbil's head twisted so suddenly that the vertebrae cracked.

"Holly!" he exclaimed in shock, crass pick up lines deserting him in the face of this unexpected miracle. "You're supposed to be dead!"

"Well, I'm not." She replied brusquely, tossing herself down onto the couch with a sigh of satisfaction, in between Chix and a gnome by the unfortunate name of Eugene Cahartez. Eugene was the great-nephew of the chairman of the Council, woefully diminutive even by fairy standards, as timid as a stinkworm in a pit full of dwarves, and preferred to be known only as E.g. for very obvious reasons. Holly had always rather liked him. The sprite, whose seat she was occupying, seated himself in the rickety armchair opposite and glared at her balefully.

"Who's the toad?" Holly continued, oblivious, jerking her head in the sprite's direction.

"There's no need for that!" he replied huffily. (To be called a toad by a complete stranger occupying your couch is a tad insulting, even if your skin does happen to be green).

Chix re-hinged his jaw with difficulty. "Uh, Erebus." he muttered by way of introduction. "Erebus Blade, Holly Short."

"Holly Short?" Blade enquired his skin flushing emerald with interest. "_The_ Holly Short? The mysteriously beautiful female who would throw herself weeping into your arms if only she could return beyond hope from the depthless limbo of the otherworld?"

"Yeah, that's the one." Chix confirmed obliviously, as Holly battered him about the head with a cushion. "You alright, girly?" he added, amused. "You seem to have lost a bitta arm, if y'know what I mean. Hard trip, was it?"

Holly gritted her teeth in frustration. Trouble always had ha dubious taste in friends. Being a Retrieval jock, it came with the territory.

"Please, Verbil," she moaned. "You have no idea. Just grab Trubs for me, please, and I'll leave you to continue with your intellectual fulfilment." She gestured to the widescreen television, frozen in the middle of a video game of the sex-violence-and-high-speed-car-chase variety.

Casually, Chix tossed an entire basin of popcorn into his mouth, ignoring E.g.'s squeak of protest.

"Gonna be difficult, sweetcheeks," he explained, through a mouthful of popcorn. "Trubs is gone."

"Gone?" asked Holly, in a hollow voice. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Oh, he's not dead, or anything," E.g. reassured her. "He's just moved out. Got a place of his own on the other side of Haven." Holly could tell by the way the gnome's lower lip quivered that he considered this defection little short of the basest betrayal.

"Ash, then." Holly said desperately. Ash Vein, the fifth flatmate, was a good elf in a crisis, a LEP major of the old school, and Trouble's closest friend.

"Working the nightshift at Police Plaza." explained Chix cheerfully. "So it looks like it's just you and us, baby. And the night is still young. Grab a console and we can give these mud boys a good hiding before sun up." He gestured at the frozen screen.

Holly groaned. She had thought that walking across Haven to her apartment was the worst possible torture right now. Of course she had been wrong. First rule of Recon. Things can ALWAYS get worse. The one thing she knew was that she was sure as Hell not going to spent the next six hours fending off the advances of Chix Verbil.

"Forget it." She grumbled, heaving herself upright with the greatest of difficulty. "I'm outta here."

"Here!" mumbled E.g. shyly, hastily scribbling something onto the back of a chip packet, and thrusting it into her hand. "Trouble's new address." Holly stuffed the scrap into her pocket, moving towards the door.

"Thanks E.g. Don't bother to see me out, anyone." She needn't have worried. The moment she was on her feet, Erebus had leapt back to the vacated couch with a gleeful cackle, and Chix had reactivated the video game's controls. Holly let herself out of the back door to the accompanying soundtrack of unrealistic gunfire, screeching tyres, and raucous cheering.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Thanks for all your encouraging reviews, kids. I'm trying to get as many chapters written as I can before (as so inevitably happens) I lose interest and start writing something else. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter. If there's anything you'd like to see happen, or anything that needs correcting just gimme a yell. I'm open to suggestions on this one!

* * *

_Damn Trouble_, the voice in Holly's head grumbled bitterly, as though he had deliberately moved house in order to force her to walk the entire length of Haven. There was nothing approaching public transport at this ungodly hour, and she had nowhere near enough gold on her to pay a cab. Besides, her mobile phone was dead. Every other phone of that model had been recycled over two years ago. Well, she was not going to grant that selfish son of a Troll the pleasure of her company, no sir, she was not. Her own apartment was scarcely further than his, and exercise was supposed to be good for a girl, after all...

Thirty minutes later, and practically snoring on her feet, Holly reached her own front door. Smiling in blissful anticipation of the bed within, she fumbled the electronic key from the pocket of her jumpsuit and swiped it across the door lock. The lock beeped, but the winking red light stayed red. Holly frowned. Must've swiped it the wrong way. Damn thing. She flipped the card and swiped the lock again. Nothing. She tried it a third time. Then all hell broke loose.

The dwarf/pixie hybrid whose flat she was trying to break into was not amused. In fact, infuriated would be a better adjective at this point in time. Enraged. Incensed. Fuming. This last was irritatingly literal, as he sported one of the particular brand of noxious fungal cigars which the late Commander Root had favoured, and he used this weapon to jab Holly repeatedly in the chest.

"What in Frond's name are you playing at, elf? It's quarter to five!! What in hell d'you think gives you the right...?!" The hybrid's yells were punctuated by the klaxon-like wailing of his security alarm, triggered by Holly's three failed attempts at unlocking the door, and by the irate yells of his neighbours up and down the hallway.

"But this is my flat!" Holly attempted to explain, though the security alarm was threatening to jar her brain out of her skull. "I live here! Look! It's my name on the doorbell! Holly Short!"

The dwarf/pixie thing did not even pause in its rant, but one of his erstwhile neighbours was distracted enough by Holly's voice to slacken her tirade.

"Holly?" asked the motherly looking elf in the floral nightdress from the balcony of the flat opposite. "Holly Short? Why, sweetheart, you're supposed to be dead!"

"Well I'm not." Holly explained through gritted teeth. This was getting tiresome. "So could you kindly explain what this idiot is doing in my flat?"

"But it hasn't been your flat for years, darling!" The motherly elf said, with the air of on explaining to a toddler that two and two make five. "The rent hadn't been paid for three months so the lease was cancelled. And all your things taken off in a big van to pay for it too! I am glad to see you alive again, and no mistake! Now if you'll excuse me, dearie, it's a long day tomorrow. Do try to get some sleep, won't you. You're looking a bit peaky." And with a wave of a plump hand, the elf disappeared back through the French window and pulled the curtains behind her.

If ever Holly might have collapsed from sheer frustration it was then. Things simply were not fair! Could a girl _never_ get a break? By her reckoning, she hadn't even been away a week, but she'd returned to find a Haven that had moved three years from that time. So much had changed... She'd gathered little from Foaly in all his babble of talk, except that he was now married, and by his own account had personally saved the world twelve times in her absence. Oh, and there was a new LEP 

commander, though she hadn't learnt who. Her flat wasn't her flat anymore, and Frond only knew what had happened to all her possessions. The old photo albums that had been in the family twelve generations. The potted daffodils on her windowsill whose buds had been just about to open. D'Arvit! She'd been halfway through that new Horri Antowitz novel too! And there'd been almost two thirds left of the chocolate mud cake Mulch had made for her birthday. Admittedly it had been suspiciously crunchy in parts, but all the same, it was _her_ birthday cake! Probably the removal company had made a fine old picnic before appropriating everything she owned. Holly's eyes were stinging, tears of frustration threatening traitorously to escape down her cheeks. She sank to her knees on the pavement making wordless mouthings like a fish out of water, but the best she could come up with was _It's not fair!_ Even inside her own head, she winced. She sounded like Grub Kelp.

Right. That was it. Determinedly, Holly struggled to her feet. Grub Kelp might not be around for her to pulverise, but she had his elder brother's address in her pocket, and she was damned if she was going to let this night pass without finding _someone_ to hit. The dwarf/pixie hybrid was still ranting.

"Shut up." Holly told him kindly, before drop-kicking him back into her one-time apartment and slamming the door behind him.

Like the LEP officer she was, Holly took stock of her situation. Use what the situation provides. Well, right now, the situation was providing plenty, but none of it particularly useful. She had a decent if filthy pair of LEP boots, a torn jumpsuit only good for the recycling shredder, a salvageable if out of date omnitool in her belt, half a handful of coins, and various pieces of obsolete technology. And two other things, on a thin gold chain about her neck. A small plexiglass sphere filled with earth, and a tiny golden Book.

Holly's hand closed for an instant about the Book, and somehow, she drew strength from it. Her initial pan could still work, with a little revising. She drew the crumpled chip packet from her pocket, checking the address again. She hoped Trouble didn't mind very early alarm calls...

Turning off onto Larch Avenue, Holly counted the numbers on her left, finally pausing before a small chromestone house. This was a rather more salubrious part of town than Holly had been expecting. Here, the streets were lined with houses, not apartment buildings, and each had its own square of garden. Trouble's house even stood next to a public park, where sim-trees stretched lichen covered boughs to the starry sky panels, and a creek bubbled, steaming slightly due to the magma channels beneath. _Very posh._ Unless Holly was mistaken, Trubs was now collecting a hefty paycheck from somewhere. Perhaps he was running a blackmarket curry ring on the side.

Well... no use speculating about it. Holly raised a fist and thumped several times on the armoured door. There was no reply. Holly knocked again, louder, throwing in a couple of kicks with her steel-toed boots for good measure.

"Kelp!" she roared, goaded past endurance by the thought of him snoring away with the smell of sim-leaves in his nostrils. "D'Arvit Trouble Kelp, get your lazy Troll butt out here now!"

With a thundering crash, the armoured door burst open, making the triple-glazed window panes shudder. A figure stood in the doorway, illuminated faintly by the electronic stars above. A figure with a tousled mop of brown hair, naked but for a pair of green striped boxer shorts, and aiming a large and threatening looking neutrino directly at Holly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Quite a long chapter this time, sorry folks. It may not be quite proofread, as I wrote it in a hurry. But Troublerocks made me do it! (Now edited so that I have the right blue eye. That is, the left eye. :-P )

* * *

There was a moment's silence.

"Raise your hands above your head and step back three paces," growled a commanding voice. Holly was piqued.

"It's nice to see you, too," she scowled. Trouble Kelp frowned, but the hand holding the Neutrino did not waver as he stepped cautiously out of the doorway, his guard up, roving eyes seeking a possible ambush.

"I told you to raise your hands above your head."

"Trouble!" Holly exclaimed, not sure whether to be amused or irritated. "Since when did you develop a paranoid streak? It's me! Holly."

Trouble's face was creased with uncertainty, but he did not lower his weapon.

"Holly's dead." He said. His eyes were hard as flint, his mouth twisted with bitterness and misery. Holly was fully prepared to be annoyed with him. Then she noticed the glint of tears on Trouble's eyelashes. The sight made her stomach churn with guilt. Did he really think that? Had she let her friends spend three years thinking of her as dead? _But Foaly had known..._ But he hadn't known for certain. And three years was a long time to wait for a centaur's hypothesis to be proven.

"It really is me," Holly said, more gently this time. "I'm home, Trubs." The hand holding the gun wavered slightly. Holly stepped forward, and the light of a streetlamp threw the left side of her face into sharp relief. Trouble's face contorted. Shock, disappointment, and something that looked remarkably like hatred.

"Holly Short doesn't have blue eyes." he said, and shot her.

The highest setting on a Neutrino hand gun was capable of barbequing a rhinoceros. Even the lowest was enough to have Holly in dreamland before she hit the ground.

* * *

The darkness receded slowly, in blurry patches like a child's jigsaw. Gradually, Holly became aware of a dull clatter, punctuated occasionally by a particularly loud shattering noise. Each of these was accompanied by a minor explosion of swearing. The sound was somehow familiar... After a moment, it came to her. Trouble Kelp was washing dishes.

Holly groaned and attempted to roll over, her head throbbing as though she'd decided to go a couple of rounds with one of the Butler siblings. The clatter of dishes stopped abruptly, and she felt a swirl of displaced air. Then a gentle hand was cupping her face, the other resting lightly on her shoulder blade.

"Holly...?"

Holly opened her eyes a crack, and was immediately assailed by a blinding brightness. She shut them quickly. She moaned, and blinked again, and found herself staring into a concerned, and somewhat embarrassed pair of green eyes.

"What made you decide it was me?" She mumbled, attempting to sit up, only for her head to start spinning wildly. Trouble looked, if possible, even more shamefaced.

"Foaly rang," he explained. "I had you handcuffed and on the way to Police Plaza before he decided that maybe he should let me know you were back. He explained all about the time tunnel, and the eye thing. I'm sorry for shooting you." he added, looking more contrite than Holly had ever imagined he could look. She shot him her best death glare in response. Somewhat to her surprise, Trouble grinned, and swept her into a vice-like bear hug.

"Get off!" Holly grumbled weakly, pushing against him. Trouble only laughed and clung on tighter. His skin was cool, the muscles of his back smooth and hard. Holly blushed. At least he'd remembered to pull on a faded grey shirt over his boxers.

At last, still laughing, he released her, holding her at arm's length and searching her face. He lifted a hand to her face, tracing the bone beneath the new blue eye, as if checking to see that it was really hers. Holly did the only thing that seemed appropriate under the circumstances. She punched him.

Trouble fell back onto his wrist, cradling his bleeding nose in one hand.

"Ouch!" he yelped, then sneezed as healing blue sparks shot up both nostrils. "I suppose I deserved that," he grimaced, ruefully.

"That you did!" Holly grinned. "And that's only part of your debt. I want a bath, dinner, and a pile of pillows."

Trouble rose and bowed. "As your ladyship commands. I have in fact whiled away the last half an hour preparing just such necessities whilst you were busy drooling all over my couch."

"I was not drooling!"

"You were, you know. Talking in your sleep, too." Trouble adopted a panicked, high pitched voice. _"Oh Artemis, save me!"_

Holly growled, and threw a cushion at him.

* * *

Now that she had time to look around, she realised that she was in a small, comfortably cluttered living room. There was a view screen, a small coffee table, several large bookcases and two worn and comfortable green couches. One was covered entirely in books, stacks of paper and various bits of hardware. The other, on which she had been lying, was mostly occupied by a large pile of laundry, upon which her head had been pillowed. A long workbench was all that separated the living room from the kitchen, and from there, several doors led to other parts of the house.

Holly followed Trouble along a corridor until he pushed open a door to reveal a tiled bathroom. Steam billowed through the open door, and Holly could barely suppress a moan of longing. There was a deep slime pit sunk into the floor, and beside it a pool of steaming clear water. Holly almost cackled with joy. Trouble left her to it. Holly set her boots to one side, the stripped off the sad remains of her LEP jumpsuit, socks and one-piece, tossing them straight into the recycling shredder. With a blissful sigh, she lowered herself into the steaming pool and closed her eyes, feeling the water caress the ache from her muscles.

The door opened a crack, and Trouble's hand appeared in the gap, dropping a tangle of clothes onto the tiles.

"I had a hunt round to try and find something small enough," he said. "They're clean, I promise. Don't stay in there until you fall asleep."

"Yes, mum," Holly would have replied, but she was too comfortable and sleepy to argue.

* * *

Trouble's pounding on the door finally brought her out of her blissful, bubble-bath induced stupor.

"Come on Holls," he called. "Food. Don't wanna let the pancakes get cold!"

Holly extricated herself from the bath with surprising agility. She towelled herself dry, noting ruefully as she did so that her hair was several inches longer than she usually allowed it to get. She dressed in the clothes Trouble had provided – overlarge black shirt, navy blue boxers, an old LEP sweatshirt, and socks that could pass for a pair if she didn't look at them too closely.

She double-timed back to the kitchen, and found Trouble flipping nettle pancakes onto a plate. He plonked it down in front of her along with a jug of blueberry syrup and a steaming mug of hazelnut coffee. Holly set to with a will. Trouble, completely unabashed, found himself a second plate and joined her.

"Well, it _is_ nearly breakfast time," he shrugged, in answer to her look.

"I can't understand why Foaly didn't call me the minute you got back," Trouble frowned, sometime later. "I specifically ordered him to let me know, if there was the slightest hint..."

"You ordered him?" Holly queried, eyebrow raised. Trouble _had_ changed. Although he was technically superior to Foaly, he had never exactly been one for orders and regulations. His attitude had been much like Holly's own – if you want something done properly, might as well do it yourself.

There was a strange expression on Trouble's face. As though there were something important which he had only just realised that she didn't know. Holly opened her mouth to ask, but at that moment Trouble jumped to his feet and started clearing plates.

* * *

By the time he showed her to the spare bedroom, Holly had just enough energy left to burrow beneath the covers. Trouble hesitated by the bedside for just a moment, but Holly was quite patently not going to be contributing to further conversation. The corners of his mouth twitched, and he punched her lightly in the shoulder.

"G'night Holls," he whispered. "I'm glad you're back."

"I still can't believe you shot me," Holly wanted to say, but she was asleep before she could finish the thought.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Golly gosh, has it been awhile. I plead pressure of assignments, etc. etc. Hope you enjoy this one. :-)

* * *

The light was warm on Holly's face. Not sunlight as such, but light nonetheless, a warming, comforting presence that shone crimson through her closed eyelids. Sleepily, she turned her head away, but if anything, the light was stronger from that direction. She must have forgotten to close her curtains last night.

The elf's eyelashes opened a tiny crack. The light was coming from a large window beside her bed. Hang on... she didn't _have_ a window beside her bed. Holly opened her eyes fully and looked around. She lay in the centre of a tousled nest of dark blue bedding. There were windows running almost the whole length of the wall on three sides of the room, through which streamed the glow of the sun strips overhead. Beside the bed stood a chest of drawers and a small stack of books, whilst the far corner housed a desk and a somewhat decrepit armchair, the former overflowing with paper, the latter with tangled laundry. It seemed that Trouble had lied just the tiniest bit about having a spare room.

Rolling over in the bed, Holly caught her head a glancing blow on a hard object concealed beneath the pillow. With a muttered curse, she reached a hand behind her and extracted a small silver pistol. She laughed softly to herself. Maybe it wasn't a curry-smuggling ring Trubs was operating, but an illegal weapons cache. Technically, of course, the People weren't allowed to possess guns, or to carry them without authorisation, but Trouble had always been a weapons nut. Julius had mostly turned a blind eye. After all, officers like Trouble Kelp were hard to find, and there was no way he'd ever let his precious weaponry fall into the wrong hands. Holly's smile was tinged with sadness. She missed Julius.

The decor of the bedroom bore evidence to Trouble's various obsessions. Several large gun racks were mounted upon the walls, glittering with a variety of highly polished lasers, rifles, and blasters. There was also a pair of Centaurian throwing knives from the time of Chiron, an Atlantean longbow, and several tarnished sickle daggers of the old fey. There even seemed to be a corner dedicated to antique human weaponry, including a silver blunderbuss from Cerro Gordo and a Nepalese khukuri.

The remaining space on the walls was occupied by a series of rather beautiful framed photographs. Trouble was a keen photographer, and Holly had to admit, he knew how to frame a shot. She rolled from the bed and stretched languidly, then crossed to examine the images more closely. A snarling Bengal tiger; the opening curl of a fern frond; a tiny golden tree frog, gleaming as if lacquered. She paused before an image of a mountain chain seen from the air, which she recognised from a training exercise in New Zealand back in the early 70s. That had been a good trip. She grinned reminiscently. Trouble and Major Arbles had somehow managed to get buried up to their armpits in a snowdrift, and she had had to haul them out by the epaulettes.

More photographs plastered the lop-sided noticeboard at the foot of the bed. These were pictures of a different kind. Trubs and his retrieval boys, on a night out; Foaly, caught in an attitude of overly theatrical despair, semi-masticated carrot spilling from his mouth; Trouble and Ash jousting with makeshift javelins, mounted upon a pair of startled Przewalski horses; a group of cadets in Academy jumpsuits; Julius, purple-faced and apoplectic, his dress uniform splattered with a fetching design of shocking pink... She recognised herself in several of the photos, and grinned at the memories they evoked. Eating ice cream with Trouble and Mulch outside Spud's Emporium, posing with the rest of the Crunchball squad, and a slightly embarrassing shot of herself, Lili and Vinyaya dancing on a table at her Academy graduation.

Her eye was caught by a picture near the top corner. Foaly again, wearing an expression of ridiculous smugness, with his arm around a plump roan Centaur. Caballine, Holly realised. And the satin sashes about their girths must mean that this had been taken at their hitching ceremony. Holly's stomach churned with guilt. She couldn't believe that she'd missed Foaly's hitching.

When she began to examine the picture-board in more detail, she noticed a number of other things that she had missed. Pictures from the recent past. Trouble's recent past, not hers. There was Grub, with his mother, a shiny new set of Lieutenant's acorns pinned to his lapel. A stocky young female gnome that Holly did not recognise, wearing a Recon jumpsuit and an expression of extreme pride. Several photographs of Trouble himself, looking exceedingly handsome, and not in the slightest like a flyboy. Holly frowned. Since when had Trouble learnt how to wear his dress uniform as though he belonged in it? For that matter, when had he learned to iron the collars of his shirts? In many of the photos, he was accompanied by a lean, athletic looking elf with a clever, pretty face, and a long chestnut ponytail. A _girlfriend?_ Holly felt her head beginning to whirl with the sheer insanity of it all. Time had moved on while she was stuck in Limbo, and she wasn't sure that she liked it.

Holly turned away from the noticeboard, and caught sight of herself in a mirror on the wall above Trouble's cluttered desk. She stared. Her hair appeared to have been cut again overnight. A split-second later, she realised that she was looking at herself, not in a mirror, but a picture frame. It was only another photo. But the worst photo of all. It was a picture of herself, taken four years ago. She wore her recon jumpsuit, and a fearless smile. Below the picture were words in flowing gnomish script. _Holly Short, 1919 – 2003. _A service sheet from a memorial. They had had a memorial for her.

Holly stumbled, and sat rather heavily upon the un-made bed. She felt almost as though she were going to cry. No wonder Trouble had shot her. _A memorial . . ._ She had been declared legally dead.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Ok, I know. Long time no update (again). Still, that's what uni holidays are for, right? There should be more on the way soonish.

* * *

Being the practical elf she was, Holly didn't waste too much time being upset. She had done a terrible thing to her friends, but she was back now, and ready to make it up to them. With her chin just a trifle higher and more defiant than usual, she set off to explore.

Trouble was nowhere to be found, so Holly took the liberty of investigating the house on her own. There was really not much more to it than she had already seen the previous night, just a smallish room which appeared to be a library, another which for some odd reason seemed to contain a disassembled LEP shuttle, an attic full of old junk, and (as was usual in fairy houses) an outside toilet. Holly made use of the latter, washed her face in the bathroom sink, and brushed her teeth with a finger.

Finally, she found what she was looking for – an old blue communicator half buried beneath a stack of paper. Breathing with slightly more effort than usual, Holly shut her eyes tight and dialled an Atlantis number. Her great grandfather answered on the fourth ring.

Holly had lost both parents before she was eighty, but she had a large and affectionate extended family. The thing about fairy lifespans was that it was quite possible to have seven or eight generations living concurrently. Holly, to the best of her knowledge had a family numbering somewhere around ninety three. And all of them thought that she was dead. It was going to be quite some phone call.

Half an hour later, and feeling more than a little teary, Holly hung up. Great grandpa Larch had wept like a twenty year old, and insisted on passing the communicator around each of the seventeen family members currently residing at his Atlantis beach house. From there, Holly had no doubt that the word would spread, and she would receive half a hundred ebullient calls and enthusiastic invitations within the next few days. A glance at the moonometer in the hallway told her that it was 2.00 in the afternoon. Without further ado, Holly went in quest of breakfast.

The kitchen pantry proved to be surprisingly lucrative. Obviously Trouble had had a few cooking lessons since getting his own place. There was a time, in Holly's not-too-distant memory, when Trouble Kelp had been barely capable of charring a pit slug. Holly wasn't complaining though. She laded herself with the ingredients necessary for a large fruit salad, and discovered a sharp knife lurking in a drawer. On the kitchen bench, she found a hastily scribbled note:

_Holly,_

_Big crisis at work. Armies of demons chewing up everything they can find, and the Council's going mad. Reporters everywhere, so if you go out, don't say anything if you can possibly help it. No idea when I can get away. Expect me when you see me! _

_-T. _

Holly might have felt bad about leaving Trouble to deal with her demon friends. But she was really far more preoccupied with the large melon she was currently disembowelling. And besides he was a Retrieval boy. Cleaning up messes was his job. _Her _job just involved finding them.

Holly was halfway through her second breakfast when she heard a key turn in the lock. There were footsteps down the hallway, and Holly turned in her chair, expecting Trouble.

"Hey," said a smiling voice. "You must be Holly."


End file.
